Always learning something… – September 2016

We finally received the rain we need in the last few weeks of August. We’ve been mowing our yard weekly again and we haven’t had to feed the cows any hay the since the first of September. As we head toward the cooler fall months, we get to enjoy misty mornings that also help the cows stay cool and the grass stays green!

During the first week of August, Austin and Vannika did well in with their 4-H animals each winning first place in their classes (don’t tell anyone that they were the only entries in their classes). Vannika even won Junior Champion and Supreme Champion trophies for the Milking Shorthorn breed with her yearling Sweet Dreams.

We are still making cheese twice a week. Now that we have plenty of grass for the cows to eat again, we may have to make an extra batch a few times in September. We had almost more cheese than we could fit in the press today. We are also running out of aging space, so we need to keep selling more cheese.

Anthony spent three days mid-August in Bedford county attending a cheesemaking class with the PA Cheese Guild. He and the eleven other attendees made seven different styles of cheese with Jim Wallace. He learned several new methods that we have been trying out since he came back. It is always educational just to sit around and talk with other cheesemakers. Everyone learns something and shares the things that they have experienced.

We’ve been playing with our Pirate Blue recipe, trying to get the blue molds to develop more consistently. We’ve gone back over the recipe we learned from Dave and Terry’s trip to Argentina several years ago. We are just cutting up the batch from our first tweaked recipe. Come try it out at market and let us know what you think!

We will be attending Potato Fest in Ebensburg on the last Saturday of September. You can also find us at Sandyvale Wine Fest on Saturday September 10, the Downtown Altoona Night Market on September 11, and the Patton Library Wine Tasting on September 18. Let the fall festivals begin! If you want to see all the events we are doing each month, visit our events calendar on our website.

Well, that’s all the updates for this month. Would you like to get these newsletters every month via email along with our monthly cheese inventory? you can sign up for our monthly updates via the form at the bottom of our How to Purchase page. Thank you to all of you who support our family farm and allow us to keep making great products.

Dave & Terry Rice and family

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About us

Clover Creek Cheese Cellar is the business that allows the Rice family to sustain their small family farm. Started in 2005, the business now markets their farmstead cheese throughout Pennsylvania and the surrounding states.